How to move long distance without a trailer or a month-long wait
Traditional shipping containers and moving companies require weeks of delivery time and won't work in HOA-restricted neighborhoods, while driving a personal car leaves no room for essential boxes and totes. This leaves people stuck between agonizingly slow freight windows, unsafe mountain towing options, and vehicles that are simply too small to carry everything they own.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Selling large furniture and items instead of moving them
- 2Packing only clothes and sentimental items in the car and buying new items upon arrival
- 3Using pallet-style shipping containers or moving cubes despite long delivery windows
- 4Using specific container services like U-Box with scheduled delivery days
- 5Using portable storage container (POD) solutions
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I don’t have much, but I still have too much for my car. I’ll be doing this alone and am not comfortable with a trailer as I’ll be going up and down the Rockies.”source ↗
“I’ve looked at cubes and companies that do pallet style shipping, but the delivery windows are like 3-4 weeks. Also got a quote from International Van Lines and they said it could be up to 21 days for delivery.”source ↗
“Also tossing around just selling the big stuff, but even then I won’t have enough room in the car for my totes and boxes.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 3How to carry a car seat and travel stroller through the airport